This section is intended to introduce the reader to various aspects of art that may be related to various aspects of the presently described embodiments. This discussion is believed to be helpful in providing the reader with background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the present embodiments. Accordingly, it should be understood that these statements are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.
In order to meet consumer and industrial demand for natural resources, companies often invest significant amounts of time and money in finding and extracting oil, natural gas, and other subterranean resources from the earth. Particularly, once desired subterranean resources such as oil or natural gas are discovered, drilling and production systems are often used to access and extract the resources. These systems may be located onshore or offshore depending on the locations of the desired resources. And once extracted, the resources are often transported via pipelines to desired locations, such as refineries. The pipelines typically include valves to control the flow of resources through the pipelines.
As may be appreciated, valves include flow control mechanisms for selectively allowing flow through the valves. For instance, ball valves include balls that may be rotated between open and closed positions to allow or inhibit flow through the valves. The ball valves also have seat assemblies that seal against the balls. In some instances, ball valve seat assemblies are single piston effect seat assemblies or double piston effect seat assemblies. In a single piston effect seat assembly, line pressure in the flow conduit of the valve on one side of the sealing interface between a seat of the assembly and the ball is used to push the seat against the ball. Sufficiently high pressure on the opposite side of the seat (within the ball cavity of the valve) will push the seat away from the ball and relieve pressure from the ball cavity. For this reason, single piston effect seat assemblies are also referred to as self-relieving seat assemblies. In a double piston effect seat assembly, pressure on either side of the sealing interface between the seat and the ball is used to push the seat against the ball.